The Local and Global Conceptualization of Autistic Cognitive Processing

Background: Rigidity and inflexibility are one of the core diagnostic features of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; APA, 2013). Results from cognitive performance-based tasks such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) and informant-based measures such as the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) suggest that autistic individuals demonstrate unique cognitive processing (Leung & Zakzanis, 2014). They tend to persevere on narrow topics and struggle with transitions or seeing novel relationships. At a perceptual level, autistic information processing has been conceptualized in a local and global manner, as suggested by the Weak Central Coherence theory (Happé & Frith, 2006) and Enhanced Perceptual Functioning hypothesis (Mottron et al., 2006). Given the robust use of local and global conceptualization in studying autistic perception, we extend this approach to cognitive processing with a specific focus on cognitive flexibility.

Objectives: This study aims to (i) explore the relationship between measures that are commonly used to define cognitive flexibility in ASD, and (ii) assess the possibility of conceptualizing cognitive flexibility measures in local and global dimensions.

Methods: Twenty-nine adolescents with ASD, M_age = 14.82 (1.21), were administered the WCST, Conners Performance Test – 3^rd Ed. (CPT-3), and Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence – 2^nd Ed. (WASI-II). From these tests, T-scores from (i) WCST Perseveration errors, (ii) WCST Correct responses, (iii) CPT-3 Perseveration errors and (iv) WASI-II Matrix Reasoning (MR) subtest were obtained and entered into correlation and factor analyses.

Results: Descriptive statistics of the four scores tended to gather around two clusters: M_WCST-Pers = 68.95 (12.33) & M_CPT-Pers = 69.00 (18.59), and M_WCST-Corr = 38.60 (6.36) & M_MR = 34.27 (10.74). Correlation analyses indicated that both WCST-Pers and CPT-Pers were negatively correlated with both WCST-Corr and MR T-scores. Three correlations were also found to be significant; a positive correlation between WCST-Corr and MR (r = .59, p = .02) T-scores, and negative correlations between CPT-Pers and MR (r = -.46, p = .03) T-scores as well as between WCST-Pers and WCST-Corr (r = -.63, p = .003) T-scores. Factor analysis and scree plot identified two factors from the scores. The distribution of means, directionality/significance of correlations, and the elbow from factor analysis support to two cognitive flexibility clusters.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that cognitive flexibility can be organized into two factors in ASD, with one factor measuring perseverative responses (WCST-Pers and CPT-Pers) and another measuring ability to see relationships (WCST-Corr and MR), which we coin as perseveration and concept formation factors, respectively. The perseveration factor measures persistent and random responses to simple, discrete and narrow information, and hence is more locally-oriented. The concept formation factor measures the ability to integrate characteristics of objects, deduce relationships among them and apply the deduced relationship to solve problem, and hence is more globally-oriented. Overall, this study extends the local and global conceptualization to study cognitive processing in autism. It opens avenues to future research on autistic cognitive processing and urges clinicians to address both aspects of cognitive flexibility in autism assessment.